


Warmth

by bamfbugboy



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Brotherly Angst, Brotherly Love, Gen, Homelessness, Self-Hatred, Temporary Character Death, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2017-02-14
Packaged: 2018-09-24 07:34:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9711302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bamfbugboy/pseuds/bamfbugboy
Summary: Years after Genji's death at his hands, Hanzo wanders into a small French town on the coast of Normandy. There, he unexpectedly finds purpose with the help of a baker and her son.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ClassyDove](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClassyDove/gifts).



> This is a gift for Classy from the Gency discord. I hope you enjoy the story. I apologize that it's got a darker bent, but it does have a Valentine's Day bent to an extent.

Hanzo has lost track of the days since he first started this lonely sojourn. Like a lost sailor at sea, he has drifted for months from place to place with no heading guiding his path. With only a his bow and quiver in tow and the clothes on his back, Hanzo has wandered for several years, touching all corners of the earth, seeking purpose after leaving Hanamura. Home represented an illusion of security and order, a false reality that had been violently shattered by the duel with his younger brother, Genji. He misses home, but home is no longer where his heart lies. Since killing his brother, he has no heart, just an empty space. 

During his aimless journey, Hanzo passes through a sleepy French town on the coast of the English channel. It's cold, raining buckets, and he's never felt more drenched in his entire life. He has weathered many storms, experienced the painful quench of thirst in the middle of the Gobi desert, but rain in Normandy is something entirely different. 

When he reaches the town square, Hanzo finds himself relatively alone, with only a few local villagers braving the storm with umbrellas and warm clothes. He must look foolish to these people; shivering in the rain like a madman, and though he has forsaken any semblance of high reputation and pride years ago, he can't help but feel like a stray, vagrant dog. 

The howling wind makes the wooden shop signs creak and sway. One sign alerts him to the town's only hotel. He has only a handful of euros, and it's not nearly enough to buy himself a room, he imagines. There's a small patisserie--a bakery, he's learned--where he can perhaps barter for a fresh piece of bread if he cannot afford it. Though the once great Shimada heir has fallen on hard times, he will never resort to stealing, threats, or violence.

Hanzo drags himself one step at a time to the bakery and opens the wooden door. He's greeted by the smell of sweet bread, icing, chocolate, perhaps strawberries. He stands in the doorway, his back to the cold, his front to the warmth of the shop. He tries to wring out his clothes underneath the small outdoor awning--lest he drip all over this business's wooden floors--but the baker calls out to him in French spoken much too fast. 

"Je ne parle pas francais," he rasps, his voice scratchy from disuse. "Anglais, s'il vous plaît?" 

"D'accord." 

Hanzo looks away from his clothes and sees a young boy standing on the other side of the display counter with a wide smile on his face. His eyes widen. He rubs at them and blinks. This young boy, no older than twelve, perhaps, looks too closely like his late brother when he was this age. 

Though who is Hanzo trying to deceive? Himself? Every smiling young boy with black hair and brown eyes has reminded him of Genji. 

"Hello! Welcome!" The boy calls over his shoulder. "Mama!" 

A short woman with dark hair and russet skin comes out from a door behind the counter to join her son in the front area of her bakery. She addresses Hanzo in French, and he, regrettably, asks if she can speak in English as well. She shakes her head, frowning, but her younger son speaks up. 

"Mama doesn't speak English, but I can tell her what you would like, sir." 

Hanzo's stomach growls loudly at the prospect of food. He hasn't eaten since his time in Bayeux. He clears his throat and tries his best to channel a version of himself from the past--a man who could inspire others to act, to obey him. He was once a prince, and now he has become a pauper. 

"A piece of bread, please. Something warm." 

Hanzo read many famous books in his youth. Two characters immediately come to mind. Jean Valjean, so desperately hungry he perhaps may steal bread or fine candelabras for money and Oliver Twist, begging for food. How far the house of Shimada has fallen that it's heir has become a destitute. 

The boy nods and translates for his mother. The woman glances from her son to Hanzo, back and forth, and her brows purse. Hanzo tries not to take her clear suspicion poorly. He looks haggard, like a vagrant. When she speaks to her son again, whatever she says makes the young boy's smile disappear too. 

"Are you homeless, sir?" 

Hanzo tries not to panic. "I have money. I can pay--"

The boy's mother interrupts him, speaking directly to Hanzo despite the language barrier. 

"She says you look very thin, very pale. She wants to offer you a warm meal, fresh clothes, and a place to sleep--on the condition that you help us with a large order we have to finish." 

It's an offer he knows he needs to accept. He's starving, he's very weak, and if he leaves this bakery in pursuit of finding something else to eat, surely he'll pass out from hunger and from chills. The temptation to stay and try to trust this mother and son is too hard to resist. 

"I'm not a cook." 

"That's okay, sir. She says you can watch the oven to make sure the pastries don't burn." 

Hanzo hates that this is what his life has become. Needing the charity of others in order to survive. At the same time, the experience is humbling; how often did the Shimada family take, take, take from the small town around the castle, without ever giving in return? Too often. He never knew of charity, only greed. Genji tried so many times to explain this fact, and every time Hanzo closed his eyes and covered his ears. 

The boy opens a little panel on the counter to let Hanzo through to the back kitchen. The mother gestures for Hanzo to follow along up a short flight of stairs to a bedroom. There, she searches for new clothes and shoves them into his hands. She points to the washroom and speaks in French. He doesn't need a translation. He knows a mother's order to clean up when he hears one. Before Hanzo steps into the washroom, he catches sight of himself in a small mirror and cringes. He looks exactly like how he feels: like a complete mess. Unshaven, hair unruly, dirty, with bags under his eyes and gaunt cheeks. No wonder the woman knew he was homeless. 

When had he stopped caring about his appearance? When he lost all desire to take care of himself after realizing he had truly killed his brother. Appearances no longer mattered when the facade of power and dignity was destroyed. 

Hanzo doesn't waste time cleaning up, even if he wants to enjoy the heat of the shower. The weather had chilled him to the bone, and his aching, sore muscles haven't had a chance to relax in months. He would stay under the hot water for an hour, if it wasn't for his own manners. He washes his dirty hair and scrubs away the mud caked onto his body and then leaves the shower stall. 

Hanzo finds the woman picked out a pair of brown slacks and a loose black shirt that is much too large for him. But it will do, because it's clean, and it's warm. Dry socks are a blessing. He runs a comb through his long hair for the first time in what feels like months. He puts it up with a piece of ribbon and then looks at himself in the mirror. At the very least, he looks more human, even if he feels like everything but. 

Hanzo finds a meal on a white plate on the bedroom table. A large, hearty sandwich, a coffee in a thermos, and a small puff pastry. He doesn't hesitate. He immediately sits down at the table and starts to eat, scarfing down the food like it's his last meal. He has to remind himself to chew, to eat slower, lest he get sick. 

After he finishes his meal, Hanzo walks down the stairs and returns to the kitchen. He finds the mother and son pairing rolling out dough. The son leaves his mother's side and offers him a white apron off of a nearby wall hook. 

"So my name's Edmond. Like the man from _The Count of Monte Cristo_! What's your name?" 

"Hanzo," he says softly while taking the apron. He puts it on and then moves to the island counter to await instruction. 

Instead, they don't come. Edmond fires off question after question. 

"Where are you from?" 

"Japan." 

"Oh wow! You have traveled very far from home!" 

Hanzo nods. He certainly has. He couldn't stay in Shimada castle any longer after the duel. He hated his family, he hated himself, he hated home. He no longer believed in any of those old ideals. He fled to escape the loss of losing Genji and instead only found more grief on his travels. 

"How come you have a bow and quiver? Are you a hunter?" 

"No, I..." Hanzo tries to think of an excuse that isn't tied to his own self-defense. "It's a family heirloom." 

"Doesn't your family need it?" 

Family. His family is dead. All he has is his guilt and his shame. But this boy is too young to understand that, too young to be exposed to the sadness of how some families fall apart. He lies, something his family taught him well. 

"No, my family entrusted me to look after it." 

Hanzo couldn't bear to carry a sword after killing Genji with one. 

"That's really cool! Can you show me how to use it?" 

Hanzo glances over to the boy's mother, who looks up at the same time while pressing cookie cutters into the dough. 

"If your mother allows you to." 

The boy's mother then gives her son instructions to translate what to do to help around the kitchen. Spacing out cookies on the sheet, watching them bake in the oven, checking on them once to see if they've turned golden brown on the bottom. He never learned to cook until he was forced months ago to learn the basics. He truly had lived nothing but a life of comfort. 

Once the cookies are finished cooling, Hanzo helps put icing on them after watching a demonstration. The small little heart shaped cookies take on color: red, pink, white. 

"They're for a Saint Valentine's Day party at my school tomorrow."

Valentine's Day? Was it really already February? The year is flying past his eyes. In two months time, it will be the anniversary of Genji's... death. Hanzo swallows thickly and his heart hurts. 

"Hanzo, you look really sad. Do you not have a Valentine?" 

Edmond's innocent question catches him off guard. He shakes his head, shrugging. No, he doesn't have one. He never has. Genji always gave and received gifts from pining women with stars in their eyes. Each year Genji always teased him and remarked that maybe someday someone would be crazy enough to fall head over heels in love with him. Now, looking back, the thought of anyone ever loving Hanzo seems so foolish. He's a murderer. No one can look past what he's done. 

"No, not right now." 

"Aww, I'm sorry." 

The glimmer in Edmond's eyes fades, and suddenly Hanzo's faced with the fact that his self-loathing may ruin this boy's good spirits. 

"What about you? Do you have someone special in mind?" 

Immediately the young boy perks up, and beside him, his mother rolls her eyes with a smile. 

"Actually, yes, I do! There's this cute boy I like. He's a foreign student from America, and he's really funny and he..." 

Hanzo listens to Edmond share his feelings for the other boy in his class while they package the finished cookies into a nice container. He nods attentively, asking questions where appropriate, and he finds himself smiling thoughtfully at the boy's enthusiasm and hope. Edmond reminds him so much of Genji. The resemblance hurts, but he also accepts it fondly. He hasn't thought well of Genji in years. He missed remembering Genji's smile and laughter. 

Too often all the memories of Genji he dwells upon are the last few moments where Hanzo realized what he had done. He remembers the look of betrayal on his brother's face, and the screams of pain as Genji slowly faded before him. He had begged for Genji to hold on, to stay alive, to hold it together... and then Hanzo ran. He ran from the pain, the guilt, and the shame. He only looked back once, and to this day, he isn't sure of what he saw--he remembers a woman bathed in light, with bright yellow wings spread from her back, descending from the balcony inside of the Shimada dojo. In hindsight, Hanzo knows this had surely been a hallucination of his grief-stricken mind. Angels were not real, but if they were, then there was some comfort in knowing Genji was in a better place. He deserved a peaceful rest. 

After he fled, he heard little about the Shimada clan other than an investigation into its business by an organization named Overwatch. 

"...So I hope him and I will be able to go down to the ocean this summer, I want to show him the sights." A pause. "Hanzo? Are you okay?" 

Hanzo stirs from his thoughts and then nods. The cookies have finished being packaged. He's been standing here like a fool. He runs a hand over his face and apologizes quietly. 

"That's ok. I need to finish up my math homework. Thanks for helping me and my mom with this. You didn't have to." 

"I wanted to." Hanzo clears his throat. "You and your mother are very kind to let me into your business and your home. I... I am very grateful. I wish I could offer more to express my gratitude, but..." 

The boy's mother cuts him off. "C'est bien. Merci beaucoup, Monsieur Hanzo." 

"Je vous en prie." He bows his head. 

"Tomorrow, after school, can I bring Jacque over and you can show us how to shoot your bow? He would love it. He loves fantasy stuff and you're just like Legolas!" 

The boy's mother speaks to her son in French, pointing to the stairs, and Hanzo can guess she wants him to work on his schoolwork. She then gestures for Hanzo to follow, and she takes him back up to the bedroom he was in earlier in the day. They have worked all afternoon in the kitchen preparing Edmond's treats for class. The sight of a plush, warm, dry bed makes him tired. He feels like at any moment he may collapse from exhaustion, and the woman knows it. She fluffs the pillows and pulls back the quilt comforter. 

Hanzo doesn't know what to say to thank her for her unexpected kindness and gratitude. This woman did not have to take him in like a stray, but she did. Today has recharged his strength in ways she may never fully understand. He needed this generosity, he needed someone to help pull him from the brink. 

He has no money, no precious things to his name. All he can offer is his hand, which she takes with a smile. Perhaps he can stay for one more day, if she'll allow, to entertain her son and his classmate. It's the least he can do. It's what Genji would want him to do. 

She leaves, and Hanzo crawls into the bed and sighs in relief. Though he's tired, he doesn't fall immediately to sleep. He continues thinking about his late brother and how much he misses him. Perhaps it's time. This year he will travel back home, somehow, and he will pay respects to the brother he loved and lost. He knows his brother's spirit is watching over him. He has lived an empty, cowardly life for too long. He needs to make their legacy right. He needs to finish what his brother started--cleaning up their family and redeeming it from darkness. Starting with himself. 

With that thought, Hanzo falls asleep knowing he has new purpose. He will find his honor again, and with it, he will seek redemption.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
